This page describes how to use coreboot on the '''[http://us.dfi.com.tw/Product/xx_product_spec_details_r_us.jsp?PRODUCT_ID=5115&CATEGORY_TYPE=INFINITY&SITE=US DFI Infinity NF570 series]''' mainboard. It is maintained by [[User:ChrisLingard|Chris Lingard]].

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This page describes how to use coreboot on the '''[http://us.dfi.com.tw/Product/xx_product_spec_details_r_us.jsp?PRODUCT_ID=5115&CATEGORY_TYPE=INFINITY&SITE=US DFI Infinity NF570]''' series mainboard. It is maintained by [[User:ChrisLingard|Chris Lingard]].

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Though not officially adopted by the coreboot team, I am maintaining a patch for coreboot-v2, that will add this motherboard to the options.

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Work in progress, back soon

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This board would be too easy for any experienced corebooter; but it is an ideal entry point for someone who has never hot swapped a chip before, nor flashed a BIOS.

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After much failure trying to get a motherboard modified with a switch and a second BIOS socket, I found one with a socketed BIOS. It comes in three flavors:

After much failure trying to get a motherboard modified with a switch and a second BIOS socket, I found one with a socketed BIOS. It comes in three flavors:

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The designers have chosen an identical chip set to the Gigabyte M57SLI, so I only had to make trivial code changes for it to work to the standard shown below. All credit to coreboot's M57SLI team.

The designers have chosen an identical chip set to the Gigabyte M57SLI, so I only had to make trivial code changes for it to work to the standard shown below. All credit to coreboot's M57SLI team.

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This board would be too easy for any experienced corebooter; but it is an ideal entry point for someone who has never hot swapped a chip before, nor flashed a BIOS.

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The BIOS chip is bottom left, below, and slightly left of the battery.

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Here is a picture of the motherboard:

== Status ==

== Status ==

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{{Status|

{{Status|

|CPU_status = OK

|CPU_status = OK

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|CPU_comments = AMD Athlon(tm) X2 dual core Processor 6000+

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|CPU_comments = AMD Athlon(tm) dual core Processor 6000+

|CPU_L1_status = OK

|CPU_L1_status = OK

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|CPU_L1_comments = CPU: L1 Cache 64K

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|CPU_L1_comments = CPU: L1 Cache 64K (each core)

|CPU_L2_status = OK

|CPU_L2_status = OK

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|CPU_L2_comments = CPU: L2 1024K

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|CPU_L2_comments = CPU: L2 1024K (each core)

|CPU_L3_status = N/A

|CPU_L3_status = N/A

|CPU_multiple_status = N/A

|CPU_multiple_status = N/A

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|SATA_status = OK

|SATA_status = OK

|SATA_comments = Tested: CD/DVD RW is sata, yet to test other things

|SATA_comments = Tested: CD/DVD RW is sata, yet to test other things

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|USB_status = Not tested yet

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|USB_status = WIP

|USB_comments = Both ehci_hcd and ohci_hcd loaded by udev/kernel

|USB_comments = Both ehci_hcd and ohci_hcd loaded by udev/kernel

|Onboard_VGA_status = N/A

|Onboard_VGA_status = N/A

|Onboard_ethernet_status = OK

|Onboard_ethernet_status = OK

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|Onboard_audio_status = WIP

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|Onboard_audio_status = OK

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|Onboard_modem_status = Not plugged speakers in, but it is yet another Intel HDA. So should work

|USB_comments = Should be OK.all the right modules are loaded by udev/kernel

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|USB_comments = Should be OK.all the right modules are loaded by kernel/udev

|Onboard_VGA_status = N/A

|Onboard_VGA_status = N/A

|Onboard_ethernet_status = OK

|Onboard_ethernet_status = OK

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|Onboard_audio_status = Untested

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|Onboard_audio_status = OK

|Onboard_modem_status = N/A

|Onboard_modem_status = N/A

|Onboard_firewire_status = Untested

|Onboard_firewire_status = Untested

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|PCI_cards_status = Untested

|PCI_cards_status = Untested

|PCI_cards_comments =

|PCI_cards_comments =

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|PCIE_x1_status = OK

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|PCIE_x1_status = Untested

|PCIE_x1_comments =

|PCIE_x1_comments =

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|PCIE_x2_status = Untested

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|PCIE_x2_status = N/A

|PCIE_x4_status = N/A

|PCIE_x4_status = N/A

|PCIE_x8_status = N/A

|PCIE_x8_status = N/A

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|CPUfreq_comments =

|CPUfreq_comments =

|Powersave_status = N/A

|Powersave_status = N/A

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|ACPI_status = Untested

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|ACPI_status = WIP

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|ACPI_comments =

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|ACPI_comments = The Linux kernel does the right thing

|Reboot_status = OK

|Reboot_status = OK

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|Poweroff_status = Untested

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|Poweroff_status = OK

|LEDs_status = OK

|LEDs_status = OK

|LEDs_comments =

|LEDs_comments =

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|WakeOnMouse_status = Untested

|WakeOnMouse_status = Untested

|Flashrom_status = OK

|Flashrom_status = OK

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|Flashrom_comments = Works fine with coreboot and with the proprietary BIOS. The board/chipset/flashrom can decode 1MB chips fine.

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|Flashrom_comments = Works fine with coreboot and with the proprietary BIOS.

}}

}}

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== Hardware ==

== Hardware ==

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* AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2

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* AMD Athlon(tm) 64 dual core

* Nvidea MCP55

* Nvidea MCP55

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* Nvidea

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* ITE IT8716F

* PMC Pm49FL004

* PMC Pm49FL004

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== Building coreboot ==

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== The payload ==

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See the documentation about coreboot, and why it needs a payload.

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First get and compile filo-0.5. Here is my configuration file

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=== filo ===

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Copy your /boot/grub directory to /boot/filo. This stops any interaction between grub and filo. Your future BIOS will boot according to /boot/filo/menu.lst, and the hard disk will boot according to /boot/grub/menu.lst.

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Get and compile filo-0.5. Here is my configuration file

<pre>

<pre>

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</pre>

</pre>

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The only ones that I changed are the MULTOBOOT_IMAGE-1. This makes filo build a bootable filo.elf

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The only ones that I changed are the MULTIBOOT_IMAGE-1. This makes filo build a bootable filo.elf

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And AUTOBOOT_FILE = "hda1:/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda3", because I have a separate boot partition on the very first partition, but my root partition is on the third partition, (The second partition is swap space)

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And MENULIST_FILE = "hda1:/filo/menu.lst", you set up this file above; this is what will be used when you use coreboot. Note that /boot is the first partition on my disk.

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If boot is a directory in the root partition and suppose this is the third partition, then this would become MENULIST_FILE = "hda3:/boot/filo/menu.lst"

Build your filo.elf and copy it into /boot. Boot it via the grub command line and make sure it works.

Build your filo.elf and copy it into /boot. Boot it via the grub command line and make sure it works.

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=== Grub2 ===

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There are hints and a wiki page, but no proper documentation.

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Grub2 did not work for me. It did show a help screen, but did not boot the system, If you embed a menu into the grub2 payload, it just reboots the machine, after showing the "Grub2 Welcome" message

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Since you get the source via svn, I probably caught it on a bad day; hopefully they will get it to work soon.

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=== A Linux Payload ===

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This was a lot easier than I thought it would be. You need to buy some SST49LF160C chips, So 16 M Bits gives you 2M bytes. There do not seem to be any bigger chips.

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This motherboard has a socketed BIOS chip, so, first buy half a dozen empty Pm49FL004 chips. Build flashrom and do something like:

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You need a system with a small kernel. The first system on this machine is "Linux from Scratch", and with careful pruning I have got the kernel down to around 1.8M bytes.

Then copy the kernel.elf file into /boot, and check that it works on grub's command line

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You can use this as a payload now, and change the size of BIOS chip in your build parameters from 4 M bit to 16 M bit. Then put in a new chip and flash it.

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You should build a static kexec and add that to the coreboot build, I am working on it.

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But this boots my system; I have built kexec on this system,and can boot into other systems from there; though this is not a good idea unless you stop your services, unmount most partitions, and remount the rest read only.

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But I still want a menu so I can choose which system I want; so I am thinking of using some sort of screen, to ask which system the booted kernel will kexec into.

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== Null Modem Cable ==

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If you have two machines you can see the output from coreboot. Get a good quality Null Modem cable and test it by running minicom on both machines. The only change that I made was to use ttyS0, instead of minicom's default of ttyS1.

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Just for information the settings are:

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<pre>

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Serial Device : /dev/ttyS0

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Lockfile Location : /var/lock

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Callin Program :

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Callout Program :

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Bps/Par/Bits : 115200 8N1

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Hardware Flow Control : No

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Software Flow Control : No

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</pre>

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== The BIOS chip ==

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This motherboard has a socketed BIOS chip, so buy half a dozen empty Pm49FL004 chips. You will also need some sort of chip extractor tool.

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Build flashrom, it is a utility program that is included in coreboot's source, and install it.

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Then do something like

<pre>

<pre>

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No operations were specified.

No operations were specified.

</pre>

</pre>

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You can now take a copy of the factory BIOS

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You can now take a copy of the factory BIOS. First read the factory BIOS into a file

<pre>

<pre>

sudo flashrom -V -c Pm49FL004 -r -o factory

sudo flashrom -V -c Pm49FL004 -r -o factory

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sudo flashrom -V -c Pm49FL004 -V factory

</pre>

</pre>

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You now should have read and verified a copy of your BIOS.

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And then verify it

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<pre>

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sudo flashrom -V -c Pm49FL004 -v factory

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</pre>

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You now have a verified copy of the factory BIOS, ready to reprogram new chips.

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.

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The next step is to use that file to flash a brand new chip. To hot swap the BIOS chip I found it best to lay the machine on its back so you can put the chip out vertically. So gently extract the BIOS chip and put it into an anti-static bag. Get one of your new chips and locate it very carefully into position, note the bevel on one corner. Gentle pressure will now push the chip home. Put the computer back onto its feet, and check that the chip is there.

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<pre>

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sudo flashrom -V -c Pm49FL004

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</pre>

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You should see the output

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<pre>

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Probing for PMC Pm49FL004, 512 KB: probe_jedec: id1 0x9d, id2 0x6e

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Found chip "PMC Pm49FL004" (512 KB) at physical address 0xfff80000.

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No operations were specified.

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</pre>

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You can now flash this chip with the factory BIOS. but before you can write to it you must erase it.

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<pre>

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sudo flashrom -V -c Pm49FL004 -E

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sudo flashrom -V -c Pm49FL004 -w factory

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</pre>

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And verify that it is a good copy

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<pre>

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sudo flashrom -V -c Pm49FL004 -v factory

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</pre>

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You can now reboot the machine and check that it works. You will need to interrupt the BIOS, read the optimized setting, reset the boot order, then write the settings back.

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Repeat this procedure until you have two backup copies, then put those two copies away somewhere safe. You now have an emergency recovery procedure.

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You may like to repeat this so that you have a spare factory BIOS chip to keep near the machine,

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== Coreboot ==

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You can now build coreboot, check that the payloads are your working filo.elf, and just follow the build instructions. Set minicom working on the second machine, you might like to capture the data into a file. Write the coreboot image to the flash chip, after erasing first, then verify it.

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<pre>

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sudo flashrom -V -c Pm49FL004 -E

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sudo flashrom -V -c Pm49FL004 -w coreboot.rom

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sudo flashrom -V -c Pm49FL004 -v coreboot.rom

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</pre>

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You can now reboot, and have fun,

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== Gremlins, Bugs and Gotchas ==

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=== Ethernet ===

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The ethernet gets changed from eth0 to eth1 by udev during the kernel start up.

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=== My splash screen looks horrible ===

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Splash screens get wrecked, due to lack of video driver at start up.

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=== Invalid CMOS error ===

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You might see this error in the coreboot log, and want to correct it.

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<pre>

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PCI: 00:01.0 init

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set power on after power fail

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RTC Init

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Invalid CMOS LB checksum

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PNP: 002e.1 init

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</pre>

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Hack the program that outputs this error something like

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<pre>

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sum = (~sum)&0x0ffff;

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printk_debug("Sum is %x\n", sum);

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old_sum = ((CMOS_READ(cks_loc)<<8) | CMOS_READ(cks_loc+1))&0x0ffff;

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printk_debug("Read from memory %x\n", old_sum);

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return sum == old_sum;

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</pre>

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Run this coreboot so that you see the values being used.

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Now build nvramtool from coreboot's source package, and use it to reset the CMOS value to the correct value.

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Now you have the correct value to compare against, this fault will disapear.

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== Timing ==

{| border="0" style="font-size: smaller"

{| border="0" style="font-size: smaller"

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! align="left" | BIOS

! align="left" | BIOS

! align="left" | Power up &mdash; OS loader

! align="left" | Power up &mdash; OS loader

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! align="left" | Linux &mdash; shell

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! align="left" | Linux &mdash; console login

! align="left" | Summary

! align="left" | Summary

|- bgcolor="#eeeeee"

|- bgcolor="#eeeeee"

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| Vendor BIOS (boot from SATA disk)

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| Vendor BIOS (boot from IDE disk)

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| 24s

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| 7

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| 24s

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| 9

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| 48s

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| 16

|- bgcolor="#eeeeee"

|- bgcolor="#eeeeee"

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| coreboot (boot from SATA disk)

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| coreboot (boot from IDE disk)

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| 9s

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| 5

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| 24s

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| 9

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| 33s

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| 14

|}

|}

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there is no difference in the speed that jobs run. Compiling the latest version of gcc takes about 26 minutes, this is a ''make bootstrap'', building both a 32 bit and 64 bit compiler.

The payload

See the documentation about coreboot, and why it needs a payload.

filo

Copy your /boot/grub directory to /boot/filo. This stops any interaction between grub and filo. Your future BIOS will boot according to /boot/filo/menu.lst, and the hard disk will boot according to /boot/grub/menu.lst.
Get and compile filo-0.5. Here is my configuration file

Then copy the kernel.elf file into /boot, and check that it works on grub's command line

You can use this as a payload now, and change the size of BIOS chip in your build parameters from 4 M bit to 16 M bit. Then put in a new chip and flash it.

You should build a static kexec and add that to the coreboot build, I am working on it.

But this boots my system; I have built kexec on this system,and can boot into other systems from there; though this is not a good idea unless you stop your services, unmount most partitions, and remount the rest read only.

But I still want a menu so I can choose which system I want; so I am thinking of using some sort of screen, to ask which system the booted kernel will kexec into.

Null Modem Cable

If you have two machines you can see the output from coreboot. Get a good quality Null Modem cable and test it by running minicom on both machines. The only change that I made was to use ttyS0, instead of minicom's default of ttyS1.

You can now take a copy of the factory BIOS. First read the factory BIOS into a file

sudo flashrom -V -c Pm49FL004 -r -o factory

And then verify it

sudo flashrom -V -c Pm49FL004 -v factory

You now have a verified copy of the factory BIOS, ready to reprogram new chips.
.

The next step is to use that file to flash a brand new chip. To hot swap the BIOS chip I found it best to lay the machine on its back so you can put the chip out vertically. So gently extract the BIOS chip and put it into an anti-static bag. Get one of your new chips and locate it very carefully into position, note the bevel on one corner. Gentle pressure will now push the chip home. Put the computer back onto its feet, and check that the chip is there.

You can now reboot the machine and check that it works. You will need to interrupt the BIOS, read the optimized setting, reset the boot order, then write the settings back.

Repeat this procedure until you have two backup copies, then put those two copies away somewhere safe. You now have an emergency recovery procedure.

You may like to repeat this so that you have a spare factory BIOS chip to keep near the machine,

Coreboot

You can now build coreboot, check that the payloads are your working filo.elf, and just follow the build instructions. Set minicom working on the second machine, you might like to capture the data into a file. Write the coreboot image to the flash chip, after erasing first, then verify it.